I just received my sample ballot in the mail for the November elections. My mother, who was never naturalized, had never seen a ballot in all her 37 or 8 years in the US and so was curious to see what they looked like. I assured her they were nothing interesting, but she pressed, so I showed it to her. She was nonplussed in general and remarked that she hadn't realized it wasn't just a presidential election, that there were other things on the ballot. "Of course," I told her. "But this time around I'm registered to vote in Los Angeles, so there's a lot on the ballot I don't know anything about. I'm going to have to...," but before I could finish my thought about needing to do some research before the end of October, she conveniently filled in my words for me.
"...fill them in randomly?"
NO! NO! Thank God she's never voted! Argh!
My civic self had a total hissy fit, then my actual self dissolved into hysterics. Plus, it reminded me of a story about my mom's Japanese colleague who gave a talk in the US in the 70s or something about how progressive Japan was becoming and made the fatal L/R pronunciation error and told a bunch of people at a lecture: In Japan, even women can now have erections.
Ah, but that seems more civically responsible than filling in a ballot like your SATs when you've run out of time.
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